Anne had a heart attack two weeks before her training started.
Most people would have postponed. But not Anne; she completed the training and, in her first month as a travel consultant, secured 18 bookings. In her own words, she looked at that number and thought,” where on earth did that come from”?
Two years on, she has won a TTG award, been named a finalist for another, picked up a second award at our Summer Celebration, become a preferred supplier at Chatsworth House and completed our Money-Back Challenge and reached a set commercial target in just seven months, which means she got her initial franchise investment refunded. She has done all of it while navigating things most people would consider reason enough to stop entirely.
From midwifery to travel
Anne spent nearly 20 years as a midwife. It was work she loved, built around people at one of the most significant moments of their lives, and she had no intention of leaving until health problems made the decision for her.
What followed was a lot of research. She looked at the options, spoke to co-founder Paul Harrison, and then did something we always encourage. She went and spoke to existing consultants, in her case Rachel and Colman, a husband and wife team who now run their own shop. Funnily enough, she had actually met them years earlier at events they had organised, without either side realising it at the time.
Their story convinced her, and she committed to our Elite package and had her eyes set firmly on the Money-Back Challenge, our unique offer where consultants who hit a set target within their first year get their entire franchise fee refunded.
“I went for the Money-Back Challenge because my head was, I’m going to do this and I’m going to get that Money-Back Challenge. And I did. If you go in with a negative attitude then that’s the wrong thing.”
She achieved it in just seven months.
A business that bends around real life
Since joining, Anne has cared for her mum through a terminal illness and lost her in November. Her husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer that July. This year her own health problems returned and she has had two rounds of surgery, one major operation followed by another just two weeks later.
Through all of it, her business kept running. Not because she pushed herself to breaking point, but because this business genuinely allows you to work as much or as little as you need to, whenever you need to.
“After my heart attack I was really, really tired. So I just did what I could each day. When I’d had enough I’d put my laptop down and have a sleep for an hour, then come back and do a bit more. It’s about managing it how you want to manage it. That’s the beauty of it.”
That same flexibility carried her through this year, when her own health problems returned and she underwent two rounds of surgery six weeks apart. She completed a £28,000 booking the day after going under the knife, and did online check-ins for a client an hour before heading into theatre. People told her she was mad, but Anne simply says she was motivated, and that is her mindset.
The support she cannot stop talking about
Anne credits the training and the people around her for getting her through the hardest two years of her life.
“The support and the training you get has been instrumental in getting me through what I needed to get through. The support is just second to none. It’s there for anybody to capitalise on and succeed.”
She joined at 59 and openly admits technology was a real barrier for her. She does not learn from videos. She needs someone to talk her through something and then do it herself. So that is exactly what happened.
“Everyone’s got a different learning style, haven’t they. They accommodate your learning style, your needs and your support. That’s just been phenomenal.”
Her Franchise Consultants have been, in her words, absolutely amazing. Head office pick up the phone when she needs an answer. Her peer group answer questions in a WhatsApp group set up on her first retreat and still going strong today. And she is quick to point out that she learns from consultants with less experience than her too, because as she puts it, every day is a learning day.
She also credits the relationships we have opened up with our key trade partners, and the ongoing learning that comes from them, as a major part of why she has grown so quickly.
Retreats, awards and a network of friends
In her first two years, Anne has been to America on her Elite Experience retreat and to Japan the following year, where she was asked to stand up and tell her story to the whole group.
“My first retreat was my Elite in America and it was amazing. We set up a group and we still have that group now, asking each other questions. That’s a supportive network.”
She has grown her business through BNI networking and wedding fairs, became a preferred supplier at Chatsworth House and has picked up weddings and honeymoons as a result. Her repeat booking rate after two years sits at 44 per cent, which she is rightly proud of.
She won a TTG award in her first year, something she says she never imagined in a million years. She won another at our Summer Celebration this year. And she has been named a finalist for a further TTG award, with the award ceremony taking place in September.
“If I don’t win it doesn’t matter. Just to be a finalist to me is a big achievement, given what I’ve gone through.”
A completely different culture
The people in the NHS, Anne says, are amazing. Fantastic healthcare workers, midwives and doctors doing extraordinary things on the front line every day. But the politics and the lack of resources put everyone under enormous pressure, which makes it a genuinely stressful and challenging environment to work in.
“Within travel it’s different altogether. It’s like one big family and everybody’s so supportive. The culture is just nice and relaxed. It’s amazing.”
What she loves most is that she is still doing what she has always done, which is working with people at a meaningful moment in their lives. As a midwife she supported people through an event they would never forget. Now she does the same thing with holidays.
“They end up becoming my friends. I end up knowing what the dog and the cat are called, what the children enjoy doing. It just becomes a bigger network of friends. And then to have that conversation when they come back and they’ve had a fabulous time. I just love it.”
What comes next
Anne’s son has recently joined the business to help drive it forward. She admits she has needed someone for a while but found it hard to let go, because the business is her baby. He is bringing fresh ideas, taking on the technology and, she notes with some amusement, trying to move her from a written diary to an electronic one.
At our recent conference he spotted the Diamond consultants across the room and told her he was going over to introduce himself, because they would be Diamond before long themselves. She liked his mindset. She suspects he got it from her.
Her advice to anyone thinking about it
Experience and background, according to Anne, are not what separates the people who make this work from the people who do not.
“It’s about taking ownership of what you want, whether it’s part time or full time. Health problems, family problems, there is support there to get you through. Anybody can work through it. It’s having that mindset and trusting the support that’s there.”
She had never worked in travel before she joined, like around 98 per cent of our consultants. She was 59. Technology terrified her. And in two years she has built an award-winning business through some of the hardest circumstances imaginable, because nobody here wants anybody not to succeed, and the support exists for exactly that reason.
“I love the whole organisation. I love what they stand for. I love the ethos of how they work and how they support the travel consultants. I wish I’d done it a long time ago. I absolutely love it.”
If Anne can do this, the question worth asking is what is genuinely stopping you.
